


Grow As We Go

by CloudySonder



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Daddy Issues, Fanfic Squared, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Inspired by Heat Waves - tbhyourelame, Internal Conflict, M/M, References to Heat Waves - tbhyourelame, Self-Discovery, Self-Indulgent, Slow Burn, Unrequited Lust, fanfic of a fanfic, this is legit just heat waves canon divergence, this is so self-indulgent
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-29
Updated: 2021-01-29
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:29:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29063619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudySonder/pseuds/CloudySonder
Summary: A Heat Waves - tbhyourelame Canon Divergence Fic(takes place after Chapter 7, but Sapnap doesn't tell Dream that George was once attracted to him)...The Dream Self-Improvement-Self-Discovery arc we all needed...He looks around his room again, but *sees* it for the first time in days.A whole different type of nausea begins to rise from his throat. Not the longing and the feelings and the misery of days past, but a thrumming frustration with himself, shivering just under his skin.He can’t want George like this. Not because he doesn’t want this George, but because he doesn’t want this Dream....
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream & Sapnap (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 27





	Grow As We Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tbhyourelame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbhyourelame/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Restricted Work] by [tbhyourelame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tbhyourelame/pseuds/tbhyourelame). Log in to view. 



> if you're tbhyourelame and you're reading this....  
> *waves excitedly* hi!11!!1!1!1!!

_ In the middle of exploring a new village, Sapnap asks curiously, “do you think you will get married, though? When you’re older?” _

_ Dream mindlessly breaks grass on his screen, and turns the idea over in his head a few times. “I don’t know, to be honest. I’m definitely a romantic person, but…” He frowns. “Marriage has a strange stigma. Like it’s unbreakable, which it’s not.” _

_ He shoves the memory of his mother’s laughter deep into his mind. _

_ “I get that,” Sapnap says, “but like, a life partner. I could see myself having one of those.” _

_ “A life partner,” Dream echoes. _

You reach for me,  _ George’s gentle voice ambushes him without warning. _

_ He bites the inside of his cheek, hard. “No. That’s not really my thing.” _

_ The second the words leave his lips, his stomach revolts with a painful ache that reeks bile and green. He tastes the acidic gas of his breakfast and swallows thickly.  _

_ It shouldn’t mean anything that he’d wanted to hold him more than kiss him senseless. The texts and calls shouldn’t live in him; the absence shouldn’t curl up and rot.  _

_ It shouldn’t, but it does.  _

_ (Heat Waves by tbhyourelame, Chapter 7) _

_ … _

_ hey dude,  _ Sapnap texts him after the stream ends.  _ it was good to talk to you _

There’s a small pause before the next text.

_ even tho i watched you fail at minecraft for 2 hours lol sucks to suck,  _ Sapnap writes, and the buzz of the discord notification sounds a million miles away. Dream recognizes these texts, recognizes the person behind them, his childhood friend of a thousand years who accepts every piece of him that Dream offers and yet never pushes for more. 

He blinks again at the computer screen. 

_ it was good to talk to you _

An admission. Vulnerability. An extended hand for Dream to take. An offering for a deeper conversation.

He looks at the shallow joke underneath and recognizes it for the easy exit it is. Something pulls in the recesses of his mind, but his head is too foggy to know if it’s gratitude or relief. 

He takes it.

_ ur gonna eat those words at the next manhunt _ , Dream messages. He’s in the middle of writing a hasty goodbye when a new message appears below his last one.

_ maybe,  _ it reads. Sapnap doesn’t keep typing, nor does he follow it up with another light-hearted quip, and Dream realizes Sapnap recognizes him back. The shallow responses, the silence, the drowning. Dream swallows. 

When did such a rift appear between the person he wanted to be and the person he was?

_ You were right,  _ he finds himself typing instead.

_ About what?  _ The reply comes in before he’s even processed he sent the message. Sapnap’s blatant enthusiasm to listen washes over Dream in waves.

_ About how the dreams were more than just stupid dreams.  _ The words tumble out of Dream without his permission, and it isn’t until the words are staring back at him on the screen that he realizes how true it is.

_ You miss him?  _ Comes the response a few contemplative seconds later.

Dream freezes. “Miss” doesn’t, it  _ shouldn’t,  _ describe it. “Miss” was meant for light-hearted flirting, for little lonelinesses, for people who loved and were loved. 

Dream doesn’t--shouldn’t--no,  _ doesn’t-- _ love. Not this quickly. Not this deeply. The loud part of his brain, the troubled, reckless kid who never grew up, agrees, and bursts of assurance rage through his blood, bright and steady. 

His mind catches on shots of George, remembers how his eyes were glued to the way George’s bottom lip dragged against his teeth, remembers the gasoline and the spark and the heat waves, the heat, the heat. Somewhere between his loud “you’re not in love”s and “not yet”s, a raspy voice whispers, and the world goes silent.

To Dream, the voice sounds like soft starvation, a call between selfishness and growth that was held together and brought forth by a man out of Dream’s reach.

To Sapnap, Dream replies,  _ maybe. _

Sapnap types for a little while, and Dream can imagine him typing and backspacing, over and over again. He’s glad they decided to talk over text.

_ is the word “miss” too much or too little?  _ Sapnap asks, and Dream feels something. Not a smile, not yet, but  _ something.  _

_ is it bad if i say both?  _ Dream replies.

_ nah,  _ Sapnap responds immediately, and Dream does smile this time.  _ not if that’s your honest answer. you’ve been… really out of it. _

_ yeah,  _ Dream glances at his room and winces. 

_ i think it’s both too.  _ Sapnap sends the message tentatively, and after Dream doesn’t begin to type a response back, he continues.  _ how do you want george? _

Completely, Dream thinks automatically. All of him. The soft lips under his own, the furious blushes, the way George falls apart for Dream without his control. He wants the dizzying heat, the light-headed euphoria that washes over him when George melts him, and what…?

And what next? 

What comes after the heat?

_ This?  _ The cold? The fall into heavy waters, the evergreen yearning for the next dose of bestial ecstasy? He looks around his room again, but  _ sees _ it for the first time in days. The messy, unmade bed he’d labeled his sanctuary, full of self-indulgent dreams that left him itching for the next fix. The walls plastered with posters of things he’d forgotten about, forgotten to  _ care  _ about, in the mud of longing and codependency he’d fallen into. 

A whole different type of nausea begins to rise from his throat. Not the longing and the feelings and the misery of days past, but a thrumming frustration with himself, shivering just under his skin.

He can’t want George like this. Not because he doesn’t want this George, but because he doesn’t want this Dream.

_ i don’t know, sapnap.  _ He types, the heavy thought settling in his chest.  _ This is--  _ He backspaces.  _ I really just-- _ Delete.  _ I like--  _ No. 

Dream leans back to let the pieces fall into place. The starved voice rasps  _ want _ in his ear, but he refuses to listen to it. The louder voice yells  _ you’re fine like this  _ in the other _ ,  _ but he knows that isn’t true either.

In the middle of the storm is Dream, focusing for once not on the emotions raging through his veins but on the thoughts sorting themselves out in his head. The wind roars around him. Dream takes a breath. 

The next puff of air carries an admission.

_ i don’t think i want to want george the way i have been.  _ Dream finally sends. He likes to think Sapnap can feel the gravity of the words, as if somehow he was as shaken as Dream was when he typed them. It wasn’t eloquent, Dream knows. It wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t poetic. But it was all Dream had right now, all Dream had that he knew was  _ Dream.  _

_ i don’t know what that means, Dream.  _ Sapnap responds, and Dream braces himself.  _ but i trust you. _

Dream hears a relieved wheeze and only vaguely recognizes it as his own. 

_ do you know what you’re gonna do about it?  _ Sapnap asks. 

_ is there anything i  _ can  _ do about it?  _ Dream could laugh.  _ it’s not like i can just stop wanting him just like that. that’d be a fucking miracle. _

_ dude.  _ Sapnap starts.  _ clay. you’re kinda made for miracles, aren’t you? _

Dream actually snorts.  _ what are you talking about? _

_ think about it. you had ADHD, you went to highschool online, you didn’t go to college, and you made it anyways. MADE IT made it. you’ve been handed so many death sentences and you’ve somehow miracled your way out of all of them. i was there for a lot of it, you know? you’re a walking miracle, dream. _

Dream reads the message, reads it again and again and again, and smiles to himself. It isn’t the first time Sapnap’s complimented him (far from it), but he appreciates it all the same. Before he knows it, he slips into his usual response.

_ those weren’t miracles, sapnap. i just, you know, grinded. you know how i get obsessed easily.  _ really _ easily.  _ Dream looks at the words he’s typed, and adds,  _ maybe that’s how i got in this mess. _

_ isn’t that how you’ve gotten into a shit ton of your old messes too?  _

_ yeah. i fixate really hard really easily, and sometimes its not exactly what needs to be fixated on _

_ how’d you get out of  _ those _ messes, then?  _ Sapnap asks, and Dream sighs, staring at the ceiling. 

_ i don’t know,  _ Dream begins to type, before he pauses. He  _ does  _ know. He deletes the line.  _ i would obsess my way into messes,  _ he clicks out, tentatively,  _ and I would obsess my way out. _

He remembers. 

He remembers failing math classes and english classes because he’d obsessed over the newest game or a piece of code. He remembers the hopelessness, the frustration with himself, and the way he’d churned that frustration as fuel, spinning cogs in his brain just as fast as before, but just a bit to the left, in the right direction.

That’s always been how it was for Dream. He’d always sprint across the paths too fast, swerving into dead ends and navigating on emotion alone, only stopping when he realized the path was crumbling beneath his feet. And then… he’d double back. He’d retrace his steps, walk back until his feet hit concrete, and then… he’d run again. Out.

_ I burn you?  _

Dream stops, taking a long look around him. The leafy forest, the yellow and blue flowers, the life, the life, the  _ life  _ that George is standing in. He looks down. The ground around him turns to sand under his flaming soul. Another beach.

If this continues… (the starved voice wails in protest, the loud voice screams in denial) he’ll end up burning himself, burning George, burning the dregs of paths down to falling sand until he falls with it, falling through an hourglass that’ll never be flipped again.

A sharp sting of panic cuts through the voices fighting for dominance. 

_ how am I gonna get out of this one, sap?  _

What is he, what is he supposed to focus on? Videos, Minecraft, Code? Everything’s colored with shades of George, and he can’t  _ see _ , can’t  _ find  _ something to grab onto, something to run towards to  _ fix  _ this.

To fix  _ him. _

_ i dunno, dude. where do you think the problem is?  _

The starved voice chants, “George, George,  _ George, _ ” and the loud voice yells “Nowhere, nowhere,  _ nowhere!” _ Dream sighs.

_ it’s me,  _ Dream replies.  _ i just don’t know where to go from there. _

Sapnap types for a long time.

_ stop me if i cross a line, ok?  _ He starts.  _ you’ve always been so… stable. way too stable. you got angry and sad and frustrated and stuff, but not to the extent that you’d actually hurt people around you. you’ve always been so strong for them. but sometimes,  _ Sapnap pauses.

_ dude, you’ll stop me if i go too far, right? am i good so far?  _ Sapnap asks.

_ you’re good. _

_ ok.  _ There’s a short pause before he continues. _ sometimes, growing up, i felt like you threw yourself into things to avoid… thinking about, i dunno,  _ yourself.  _ maybe back then you needed that, cause of your younger sisters and your mother and school and shit, but now… Dream, nothing’s really holding you back from yourself. _

A knee-jerk fear punches clean through his chest. 

_ are you saying…?  _ Dream thinks about beaches and oceans and cold sand and being killed in his dreams, over and over and over again. He backspaces.  _ i’ll drown,  _ he sends.

_ then we’ll wait for you to come back up,  _ Sapnap replies.  _ me and george both. we’ll wait. _

Not “I’ll drag you from yourself.” Not “I’ll save you.” Not “I’ll complete you.” Not even “I’ll help you.”

Just. 

Dream stares at the screen.

_ we’ll wait.  _

Somehow, it’s enough.

_ ok,  _ Dream types.

_ ok? _

_ yeah, ok. _

**Author's Note:**

> i love heat waves very much and i love the author very much and i love their writing and honestly everything abt heatwaves is so pogchamp, but this is just the beginning of what'll probably be a short canon divergence fic bc heatwaves is just that good


End file.
